


The Golden Road

by tumbleweed (zel), zel



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Dark Brotherhood - Freeform, Dunmer - Freeform, Gen, vampire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 09:11:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/911454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zel/pseuds/tumbleweed, https://archiveofourown.org/users/zel/pseuds/zel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Valtieri made her but Jauffre defined her. The old blademaster gave her purpose and Martin protected her. The small folk believed in a Champion, but they never knew she had been a monster. Sodrusu lives a life of prayer and penitence now, suffering in silence in the long months after the emperor's death. She has learned of a plot against her, a plot by the new blademaster to hide the hideous truth once and for all, and she takes to a small chapel to ask Talos for aid.</p>
<p>There she learns that when you invite the gods on a night that rains, there is only one god who answers... and He has quite the proposition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Golden Road

"O Talos king and soldier, bringer of the law, speaker of the Voice, kind father, please hear my prayer. Though I walk in darkness I strive for the light of the Divines. Such is your goodness and justice that even a monster like me can see it. I have renounced the Dark Brotherhood. I have renounced the drinking of innocent blood. I have renounced the title of the Champion of Cyrodiil, for even the defeat of Mehrunes Dagon cannot wash away the evil I have done. I am greatly sorry I was not the hero that the people thought I was, and I beg they never know I was undead..

"Talos king, I seek your guidance. There is a new leader among the Blades, and there is talk that she may try to have me killed. If it is your wish for me to die, then I die.. but if it is better for the empire that I should live, then I wish to live on and do good rather than die to palace intrigue.

"I fear a similar fate may have happened to the other heroes: the Eternal Champion and the Agent of Daggerfall. Some say they even had the Nerevarine put to death behind the scenes… or that they wish to.

"O Talos, tell me what to do. There are rumors I may be hunted. There are old stories of a cure for vampires. Brother Jauffre urges me to find Brother Caius Cosades, who has been branded a traitor and a runaway. Crassius Curio of House Hlaalu has given me a letter he claims to come from Indoril Nerevar himself. What am I to do? Am I to go then to Morrowind, to the land of my birth, and of my maker’s clan?"

Sodrusu brought her hands together and bowed her head. “Please, Lord Talos. Please give me a sign."

After the death of the emperor Martin Septim, last of his name, it was said that the Champion of Cyrodiil took holy orders and began a life of prayer and contemplation.

It was said, too, that there was something strange in how swift she disappeared from the stage of the world. The highborn whispered of intrigue in their halls, and the small folk lifted frothy mugs in boisterous gossip: both noble and common, both man and elf, the talk was the same.

It was rumored that the champion was with the emperor’s child, and, by the grace of the Nine, there would be another Septim.

Those were only rumors, though, the hopes of a desperate province destroyed by war.

It could never be.

—

A steady rain pattered outside as a monk knelt in midnight prayers. Sodrusu was of an elf of a later young appearance, perhaps akin to a human female of thirty years, with the sharp cheekbones, hollow face, and slanted red eyes of a full-blooded dunmer. Her hair was only a dark fuzz, since she had shaved it this night as she shaved it every night. It always grew back so quickly. Her sad features were dominated by thick black brows and eyes that seemed to impart a sense of wrongness, of something different, weird, not like you.

Those eyes were shut now as she held her hands to the makeshift altar in the countryside chapel. Its offerings were peasant offerings, simple yet sincere. She had brought meadow flowers she collected and a few interesting mushrooms. She lived plainly now, plain and hungry. Her battles, she thought, were behind her.

"O Talos king and soldier, bringer of the law, speaker of the Voice, kind father, please hear my prayer. Though I walk in darkness I strive for the light of the Divines. Such is your goodness and justice that even a monster like me can see it. I have renounced the Dark Brotherhood. I have renounced the drinking of innocent blood. I have renounced the title of the Champion of Cyrodiil, for even the defeat of Mehrunes Dagon cannot wash away the evil I have done. I am greatly sorry I was not the hero that the people thought I was, and I beg they never know I was undead..

"Talos king, I seek your guidance. There is a new leader among the Blades, and there is talk that she may try to have me killed. If it is your wish for me to die, then I die.. but if it is better for the empire that I should live, then I wish to live on and do good rather than die to palace intrigue.

"I fear a similar fate may have happened to the other heroes: the Eternal Champion and the Agent of Daggerfall. Some say they even had the Nerevarine put to death behind the scenes… or that they wish to.

"O Talos, tell me what to do. There are rumors I may be hunted. There are old stories of a cure for vampires. Brother Jauffre urges me to find Brother Caius Cosades, who has been branded a traitor and a runaway. Crassius Curio of House Hlaalu has given me a letter he claims to come from Indoril Nerevar himself. What am I to do? Am I to go then to Morrowind, to the land of my birth, and of my maker’s clan?"

Sodrusu brought her hands together and bowed her head. “Please, Lord Talos. Please give me a sign."

For a long moment, she heard only the rain.

Then she heard a sound of something rolling, and there it came down the aisle, slowly, steadily, a rolling head of lettuce.

Sodrusu stood up on one knee in alarm. When she whipped around she felt a jerk against her arm; her eyes flashed and she saw that her wrist and hand were caught up with yarn around the altar!

"Ach, if there were one thing I found abhorrent about the vampires, it were this," purred a beautiful voice. “The melodrama."

There were two men in the very back of the chapel, the first standing as if a servant, the second seated. The first old and breton-seeming, his strange outfit picked out in red and black, a livery she did not recognize. The second man..

The second man was seated with his legs open just so, his powerful shoulder against the bench, his hand on an ornamental walking cane. He was in a riot of purple and gold, his lordly outfit split in color down the middle, and he was the most gorgeous man she had seen in centuries.

He was a man of healthy black skin, textured hair, with all the air of mystery and adventure of a legendary redguard hero. His eyes were gold as pirate’s coins. His teeth were sharp.

Sodrusu yanked against the yarn that bound her arm, but it was too strong.. and her, weak, like she might swoon. “Who are you?" she gasped. “What do you want?"

"Ooh, I think you know the first answer," replied the gentleman, and his voice was that of High Rock province, a rich brogue that melted bones. “As well the second."

Her vision was blurring round the corners, and she felt— she thought, she thought she saw something great and terrible twisting in the candles’ shadows on the far wall.

"Now I mean no offense to ye, but of late I found you disappointing." The gentleman gazed about the chapel in a far-off seeming manner, as though lost in thought. “Where is the girl who comes by night to cut throats and burn homes? Where is the assassin? Where is the heart-ripper, the blood-drinker? Old girl.. when ha’ you gone so… vanilla?"

Sodrusu steeled herself. “I have renounced my evil ways. I do not deny I did those things, but that is not who I am now."

"Ach no, no.. now you piss and moan, now you wring your hands and cry your bloody red tears! No wonder Talos wouldn’t ‘ear a word of it tonight!"

"My lord," said the manservant. “Your accent is slipping."

The handsome stranger waved his hand. “Hush ye, Haskill.. your laird will talk like he wants, he doesn’t need to be consistent.. "

"But my lord, they don’t even talk like that."

The handsome stranger made a snapping beak motion of his hand. “Hush-hush-hush." Then he winked at the beleaguered monk.

Sodrusu realized her nose was now bleeding. In her blurred vision she thought she saw something where the old man stood, a thing of dusky twilight, a blue youth of great beauty, a dark seducer, but there he was again, old, paper-white, breton, without a smile, without expression.

The handsome stranger rose, and when he walked, it was a great gambol of a walk with the interesting cane.

The man smiled, and she saw by the flicker of his aura that he was no ordinary man. “You see, my love," he said, “when you make your prayers on a night of rain.. there is only one god who answers."

The entity paused for effect, and then smiled. “The only god who remembered his umbrella."

The elderly manservant cleared his throat. “May I present the Lord of the Shivering Isles, Master of Mania and Dementia, Patron of Arts and Insanity, the Prince of Madness, his stupefying greatness Lord Sheogorath."

Sodrusu ripped free from the altar, and she saw the chapel was going weird now— the mushroom offerings were growing huge with a life of their own; that head of lettuce was a man’s head, mouth open and shutting, lips moving; the stained glass windows showed the forms of the god, his aspect as the Skooma Cat, the Jovial Stranger, a Breton Gentleman, a dark seducer, an elven thing of sharp teeth and there in the last panes of glass she saw weird red and gray light of a more horrifying aspect yet and—

Sodrusu made the sign of the Nine as she put her back to the wall, moving away. “You have no power here," she hissed. “The blood of the dragon sealed the passage between the worlds. No Daedra can come here."

Sheogorath leaned on his cane, just so. “Now is that true, Haskill?"

"We are forbidden from invasion, my lord.. but outside of hostility the rules are silent."

"Now you see," purred Sheogorath, “ye have nothing to fear, My wee one! I was only out fer a walk when I heard yer distress." He placed a hand on his bosom in an almost matronly manner. “Ah, ye puir theing.. "

Haskill coughed gently. “My lord.”

The kohl-rimmed eyes shot him a look. “Now Haskill, if ye continue to speak in such a way to yuir holden lord, I may lose Me patience.. "

Sodrusu was working to place distance between them, moving further toward the back of the chapel, but the room seemed to move as she moved and round and round she seemed to get closer. “You have no power over me," she cried out. “I stood against one god— I shall stand against another."

The mushrooms were overtaking the walls at this point; it was growing rather humid, there were crabs, and some kind of yellow triangle glowed in the aisle with what looked like an exclamation point marked upon it.

"I mean ye no harm, child," Sheogorath said gently, “doon’t be afairn now, Uncle Sheo ha’ come to haalp."

"What does that word even mean. My liege, it’s like You never even went to High Rock."

"I was in Daggerfall, weren’t I?" snapped the Prince, and he looked quite catty just then. He struck the ground with the cane (Sodrusu jumped) and the old man was gone. In his place a large rat nosed and squeaked.

"Now then.. I have heard your troubles, and I do think it’s quite sad, sad indeed. The hero of the empire hidden away like a terrible secret, the poor thing all dead and evil.. what would the people do if they learned their champion was really a monster?"

Tears of red were starting to run from her eyes.

"Aww, come now, don’t do that, no no. You were a killer! Now you can’t go ‘n cry like your feelings were hurt! You’re a vampire, love, you don’t have feelings."

"You’ve come here to try to shame me," she whispered. “But I have tried to help people, where you only cause mischief and chaos."

Sheogorath clucked his tongue. Without looking, he pointed his cane out to that glowing yellow.. triangle. He beckoned.

Then he looked. Frowned. “Haskill," he said in an undertone. “Will you please.. "

Then he smiled at her. “I have come to try to help ye. You spoke to Talos but it was Me who heard you. If you wait for him to give you a sign.. it will be a stake through the heart as you sleep in midday. Oh, you are right, wee one. They are coming to kill you and Nerevar both!"

"What concern is it to you? Why would you care?"

"I care because it’s soooo sad," replied the Prince, and his accent was truly awful now, “and because it’s better for Me if you were alive.. suits us both, don’t you think? When you find your cure?"

"I can’t trust you," Sodrusu whispered.

"Oh, no, nooo," the deity agreed. “You can never trust Me, love, only trust me to cause mischief and chaos! And what could be more trouble than the Champion and the Nerevarine together, mmm?"

Sodrusu froze. “You speak treason."

"No-no, it’s a High Rock accent," protested the madgod— somewhat defensively. “It’s authentic."

"I’ve heard that vicious rumor bandied about and there’s no way, no way I would ever— "

Sheogorath by arcane methods drew the glowing triangle into his hand, and when he snapped it, it become a scroll. He watched her all the while as he spoke. “Is the empire not a land without a king? And is Nerevar not a king without a land?"

"A king," the madgod purred, “without a queen."

Sodrusu drew up in outrage, taking in a breath she did not need, and then she laughed a bitter sound. “Madness!" she said.

"Oh— of course!" Sheogorath batted the scroll against his cheek like a coy lady with a fan. “And anyhow, who could contest his claim? Hm? What army could stand against him? Would they? He may be strange and different.. but he was an outlander, too, and you, My girl. Morrowind-born, but you’ve forgotten the ways of your people! You aren’t weird, different, or frightening to these small folk.. they know you, and you saved them. Both of you are long-lived, and you can provide stability to a land that cries out for it."

The giant rat squeaked.

"Stability," Sodrusu spat. “That is furthest from what you want. I know you mean disaster."

Sheogorath touched the scroll to his lips. “So you still have your wits about you. Hmmm, well, I won’t give away the game but I think you will find My offer irresistable."

"I don’t want this. Goodbye, begone."

"Oh, but do what ye like, I was oonly thinking out loud just then.. you haven’t heard Me real offer yet. It’s more simple."

"Fine then, speak your offer and be gone from this place."

"There is a necromancer in Morrowind who can cure you."

"That’s it?"

"See now, isn’t that simple?"

"Nothing is, with you."

"There was once a talented mage dear to My heart, a mage with unique skill and abilities.. a mage with unusual kinship with the dead. The other wizards feared his power and cast him from their number. He fled Cyrodiil.. he lives on the run.. but if you find him, he will raise you from the dead. He will cure you, and you walk in the day."

"All of these, this theatrical.. to tell me about a dirty necromancer? To persuade me to rescue him?"

Sheogorath made an elegant shrug. “I told ye it was simple. Anyhow, with the greatest mages dead in the war.. and the best necromancers rooted out.. you may as well give it a try. No?"

Sodrusu frowned. It— it was making sense. It was starting to come into place. “You tell me this information.. you think that if you had a reason to get me to Morrowind.. what are you trying to do? What chaos, what civil war?"

"Now, now. That would be telling." The Prince of Madness made a flourish. “Deep down, you’re a smart one, you’ll put it all together… you’ll see it for what it is.. and you won’t be able to resist, even knowing it is wrong. There’s the fun of it, love. Remember: it’s Oritius of Bravil that you’re lookin’ for! Don’t worry, it’s written down here."

The champion hissed, “I won’t play your game, Sheogorath."

"I think you will," the Prince replied, and he pressed the scroll into her hand. “Now take this, and mind you don’t melt!"

..

Suddenly Sodrusu woke in her coffin with a Writ of Execution in her hand. If she had time to read it, she would realize then that Sheogorath now pitted her only chance at a Living Cure against former loyalties to the Dark Brotherhood.

She did not have time to read it, however; she woke in her coffin the instant before the villagers pried off the lid with a bar.

They must have awakened her when they dragged her coffin out of the chapel crypt and into the day.


End file.
